Lecture 2

THE NOTION OF STYLE AND

STYLISTICS
 Style

The word style is derived from the Latin word

“stilus”
Now it refers to different things:
Different compositions,
Correspondence between
thought and expression,
Individual manner of making
use of language.
 Four meanings of the notion of style

Some or all of the habits of one person (e.g.,

Eminem style);
some or all of the language habits shared by a group
of people at one time or over a period of time (e.g.,
the style of the Victorian era);
Effectiveness of a mode of expression (in this
case it is given a more restricted meaning used in the
evaluative sense- );
Referring solely to the literary language as
characteristic of ‘good’, ‘effective’, ‘beautiful’ writing
(associated exclusively with literature-
Journalistic style of Hemingway)
 Definitions

According to Berel (1987) style is

“the replication of patterning,
whether in human behavior or in
the artifacts produced in human
behavior, that results from a series
of choices made within some set of
constraints” (p.21).
 Definitions

“Style”, as John Haynes (2006)

puts it ,
“is the study of finer shades of
meaning within a more general
commonness” (p. 2).
“le mot juste”.
 Definitions

According to Lucas (1955), style

is “the effective use of language,
especially in prose, whether to
make a statement or to rouse
emotions. It involves first of all
the power to put fact with
clarity and brevity” (p.9).
« Style is understood as an emphasis
(expressive, affective, or aesthetic)
added to the information conveyed by
the linguistic structures, without
alteration of meaning. That is to say
that language expresses and that style
stresses… »
(Riffaterre 155)
 Common Features of Style

First, style is bound to perception (terrorists or as

freedom fighters);
Formality decides which style to or not to adopt
(audience and place).
Style is a matter of focus (the importance of the
aspect in the conversation)
Style is a matter of representation (It adheres to
the way you want to represent a person a thing, or an
idea to the other)
 Stylistics

Stylistics is defined as « a method of textual

interpretation in which primacy of place is
assigned to language » (P. Simpson 02)
It provides various patterns and levels on which the
function of a text stands.
The preferred object of stylistics is literature,
however,
1- Literary writing is not the only source for
creativity (other forms of discourse are as important-
advertisement, music, journalism...etc)
 Stylistics

2- The same techniques of analysis bring insights as

much from language as it does from literature.
What can stylistics tell us about literature?
 What can stylistics tell us about language?
 Stylistics acknowledges time, place, cultural, and
cognitive contexts that envelop a given language
(language in use)
Extra-linguistics features of a text make its meaning
as well.
 Purpose of Stylistics

To explore creativity in language use.

It enriches our ways of thinking about language, and
hence, literary texts.
It tells us about the rules of language and when these
rules are violated.
The three ‘Rs’ that a stylistician should conform to:
Rigorous (an explicit framework of analysis)
Retrievable (organised through explicit terms know to
other stylisticians)
Replicable ( it can be verified for testing or application
again)
 The SECOND COMING
W. B. YEATS 1919

 Turning and turning in the widening gyre

 The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

 Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

 The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

 The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

 The best lack all conviction, while the worst

 Are full of passionate intensity.

 Surely some revelation is at hand;

 Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

 The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

 When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

 Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

 A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

 Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

 Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at

last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 Yeats

Protestant Anglo-Irish minority,

Belonged to aristocratic elites,
He featured the Irish culture in his writings,
Accused of elitism,
Interested in occultism and spiritualism,
Driven by patriotic ideals (John O'Leary),
Mixed his love for romantic setting and themes with Irish
legends,
Interested in both prose and poetry,
Courted a Nationalist Maude Gonne,
He became a distinguished theosophist (teaching about God and
the world based on mystical insight)
 Graphology

Punctuation

Italics

Capitalization
 Phonology

Free verse (consistent meter by free rhyme)

No end rhyme
Alliteration: repetition of ANY SOUND at the
BEGINNING of words.
 Consonance: Repetition of Consonant
ANYWHERE
- Assonance: Repetition of vowel ANYWHERE
 Phonology

Alliteration: Falcon- Falconer- fall; while-worse;

sight-strong- sleep-sands; rough-round; darkness-
drop; be-born.
Consonance: blood-tide
Assonance: hand-sand; world-worse; shape-gaze
(again); sleep-reel-beast; out-about-now; sight-
thighs.
Onomatopoeia: Slouches
 Lexical Level
 Diction or choice of vocabulary:
 Repetition: The second coming, turning, desert, surely
 Concrete words: falcon-falconer-lion- sun- body-head- man-birds-
beast- cradle- sand-thigh
 Abstract words: (gyre)-anarchy- innocence- conviction- intensity-
revelation-shadows-darkness-sleep- nightmare-sight-gaze
 Adjectives: best-worst; vast-pitiless- indignant-rough- passionate
 Adverbs: surely-hardly
 Action verbs: turning-hear-hold-drowned-troubles-is moving-
drops- born-fall- loosed- come
 State verbs: to-know-vexed-luck
 Negative words: blood-dimed- anarchy- lack-worse- indignant-
vexed-nightmare
 Syntax-grammar

Use of gerunds: use of « ing » for

incompleteness
Noun phrase: the falcon-the blood-
dimmed- the darkness…
Definite and indefinite articles: the a
Double negation: cannot and cannot
The rest of sentences are affirmative
Passive and active: cannot-is loosed
 Semantic level

Use of symbols: Gyre-Falcon- falconer- sphinx-

blood-dimmed tide- the rocking cradle
Use of metaphors and similes: blank and pitiless as
the sun- the second coming- the falcon cannot hear
the falconer- the blood-dimmed tide-and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned- the centre
cannot hold
Allusion: the second coming
Imagery: widening gyre- things fall apart